"Research in Alaska"

This report describes field activities of the Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals (ASAMM) project conducted during summer and fall (1 July–31 October) 2015 and data analyses used to summarize field activities. Surveys were based in Barrow, Alaska, and Deadhorse, Alaska, and targeted the northeastern and southcentral Chukchi and western Beaufort seas, between 67°N and 72°N latitude and 140°W and 169°W longitude.

So what’s the big deal about successfully growing Arctic cod in a laboratory? It represents another step forward toward understanding how these “bellwether” fish in the Arctic marine ecosystem may fare with a warming ocean and climate change.  It also opens up a new frontier to study cod development in a laboratory setting. Up until now, this type of research was restricted to the short, ice-free summer period in the Arctic.

A 2015 study shows newly hatched northern rock sole could respond to a more acidic ocean.

Previous studies have shown rapid mixing of sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) among fishery regulatory areas, with the pattern of movement related to fish size. > 300,000 tag releases in Alaska and over 27,000 tag recoveries from 1979 to 2009 were analyzed.

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report

The rockfishes (family Scorpaenidae) of the northeast Pacific Ocean north of Mexico comprise five genera, three of which are included in this guide: Sebastes, Sebastolobus, and Adelosebastes. Sebastes includes some 100 species worldwide; 33, including one to be described, are presently recognized from Alaskan waters. Sebastolobus (commonly known as the thornyheads) includes only three species worldwide; all three are found in Alaskan waters. The single species of Adelosebastes (the Aleutian scorpionfish, A. latens) is known only from the Aleutian Islands and Emperor Seamounts. Of the three genera treated here, Sebastes poses the most difficulties in identification, both because of the numbers of species and because of their morphological similarity and variability. This guide includes color images of 37 species photographed under natural and electronic flash conditions in the field. Most specimens were photographed immediately after collection.

2015 North Pacific Groundfish Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Reports for 2016 Fisheries.

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report.

Arctic Whale Ecology Study (ARCWEST)/Chukchi Acoustics, Oceanography, and Zooplankton Study-extension (CHAOZ-X) 2014 Cruise Plan.

Through an Inter-Agency agreement (IA) between the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NMML is conducting a dedicated multi-year study to determine relationships between dominant currents passing from the Bering Sea into and through the Chukchi Sea and prey resources delivered to the Barrow Arch area (an area of high bowhead whale and prey concentrations between Wainwright and Smith Bay), and to provide information about the dynamic nature of those relationships relative to whale distribution and habitat utilization in the eastern Chukchi and extreme western Beaufort Seas. This study will also provide important baseline data on the occurrence, distribution, and habitat use of large whales in an area that is subject to rapid change in climate and human industrial development. This quarterly report covers the period of this study between January and March 2014. The major activities during the first quarter of 2014 consisted of planning for the 2014 Arctic Whale Ecology Study (ARCWEST)/Chukchi Acoustics, Oceanography, and Zooplankton Study-extension (CHAOZ-X) cruise and the analysis of data collected during the 2013 ARCWEST cruise.